Saturday, February 23, 2008

I probably should have posted earlier but better late than never. Consider it an olive branch and a 'see ya, next year' when we start all over again (your predictions in the second annual "best actress psychic" contest will be due on March 28th --details to come. My first predictions always go up on April 1st... I have to start studying the upcoming releases)

The Best Actress race has had an unusual degree of animosity this year. I haven't seen it this contentious between awards-watchers since probably "Swank vs. Bening (Round 2) + Staunton" (2004). I'm predicting Cotillard and totally rooting for Christie ~ and the reason I never make any pretense of objectivity about it is that I think it's essentially a sham for anyone who blabbers about entertainment consistently (entertainment pundits, critics, Oprah ;)...and all of you) to hide their own feelings. The judging of art is a subjective activity.

Regardless of how it goes tomorrow, Christie OR Cotillard, there will be a huge swath of people who didn't get their way and who feel that there was a terrible injustice committed ...and I hope everyone will understand that that's a shame. It's the downside of a competition about something that is impossible to definitively qualify. 20 years from now some of these movies will have been forgotten, some may not and the performances or careers involved may have been completely reevaluated or not... Even after Oscar closes the book the book remains open for history to decide if they chose well or not. And history is fickle, too.

The time capsule reaction and the subjectivity are the very things that makes awards watching both fun and aggravating. But really, as the cliché goes... they're all winners. The 5 nominated actresses nabbed terrific roles, and beat out hundreds of other performances to be recognized as the best and they're all fabulously wealthy talented and beautiful women on top of that. So essentially they all "won" long before AMPAS got involved or before any fans took sides.

16 comments:

Hear, Hear for some sense! But really, no matter if Christie or Cotillard has their name called out, a little part of me will cry inside that it wasn't Linney. It's totally futile rooting for her, I know, but that's half the fun, really.

If Knightley or Jolie had obtained the nomination instead of Blanchett I'd have rooted for one of them, even if it should have been futile too...

Anyway...if Day-Lewis, Bardem, Swinton and Christie (or Cotillard, or Page) win it will be the first time with no american thespians among the winners...mmm...maybe DEE or RYAN's chances aren't completely lost yet...

This may sound sacrilegious but i think most young actresses (and actors) just don't have the chops. I saw a preview of "Other Boleyn Girl" yesterday and it's TERRIBLE. Scarlet Johansson and Natalie Portman are both lightweights. They're the visual equivalent of oatmeal--bland and unsatisfying.

This is very, very smart analysis, if you ask me. Our opinions of things change with time, and some films last and some don't, and sometimes we're proud of the choices we make and sometimes we aren't. The Oscars, in particular are always a reflection of the specific moment that we inhabit just now. Years from now, who knows what we'll all be talking about.

For some reason this category is giving me shades of Best Actor a few years ago (2003?), when no one could figure out if Jack or DDL would win the prize, and then Adrien Brody waltzed in and won. In retrospect though, it was a brilliant choice.

In my head, this year's Adrien Brody is Laura Linney.

But to be fair, let's not rule out the possibility of Ellen Page winning either.